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February 6, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pop star Miley Cyrus seems to have misplaced her sense of irony.  In recent months, the former child star of Disney’s Hannah Montana has taken a “Wrecking Ball” to her once-wholesome image, starring in a controversial music video shot by pornographer Terry Richardson and another by famed erotic photographer Rankin in which she simulated various sex acts.

During the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), Cyrus shocked viewers with a live performance with married singer Robin Thicke that was so explicit that we can't even describe it here, which even she admitted she was concerned might get blocked by censors.

Despite the pornographic nature of her videos and raunchy live performances, however, in a recent interview for W Magazine, 21-year-old Cyrus told Ronan Farrow that the reason she no longer trusts men after breaking up with her former fiancé, actor Liam Hemsworth, 24, is that men “watch too much porn.” 

“Guys watch too much porn,” Cyrus told Farrow seriously. “Those girls don’t exist. They’re not real girls.”

Cyrus appears to consider herself a ‘real girl’ despite her worldwide fame and enviable beauty, citing her masculine haircut and nearly curveless frame.  She justifies her own pornographic offerings by claiming she’s trying to send young girls the message that you don’t have to look like a porn star to be sexy. “I’m trying to tell girls … [y]ou don’t have to wear makeup. You don’t have to have long blonde hair and big [breasts]. That’s not what it’s about. It’s, like, personal style.’”  (In another touch of irony, the photo essay that accompanies Farrow’s piece features Cyrus wearing her hair long and platinum blonde, nude and splayed out across a bed like a porn star.)

But Cyrus’ posturing smacks of overcompensation for a deep-seated insecurity.  Given her implication that pornography played a role in ending her four-year relationship with Hemsworth, it’s hard not to imagine that she feels she has something to prove.  If – even as a beautiful young celebrity with millions of dollars and hordes of adoring fans – Cyrus felt she couldn’t compete with pornography for her boyfriend’s attention, then perhaps becoming the most visible pornographic icon of them all is one way of getting revenge and defeating the competition once and for all.

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Cyrus isn’t alone in her conundrum.  A growing number of surveys have shown that pornography is ruining relationships all over the world.  Young men like Hemsworth have grown up in a world where explicit material is only a mouse click away – and it’s driving a wedge between them and the women Cyrus refers to as ‘real girls.’

Writer Rich Santos told Marie Claire magazine that porn had taken all the excitement out of his relationships with young women.  “Before the internet porn, a kiss would make my heart race, my lips and body tingle, and I'd get butterflies in my stomach,” he said.  “Since changing my habits, I've lost that feeling: the newness of a real kiss. [Porn] has somehow muted my feelings.”

Another young writer, Davy Rothbart, wrote a piece for New York Magazine called, “He’s Just Not That into Anyone.”  In it, he talked about the problems with intimacy pornography has caused for him and for many other men he interviewed.

“The initial symptom for a lot of guys who frequently find themselves bookmarking their favorite illicit clips appears to be a waning desire for their partners,” Rothbart wrote.  “For a lot of guys, switching gears from porn’s fireworks and whiz-bangs to the comparatively mundane calm of ordinary sex is like leaving halfway through an IMAX 3-D movie to check out a flipbook.”

If that’s the case, then Cyrus’ approach to the problem is like using gasoline to put out a house fire. She may be young, but she’s been in the spotlight long enough to know that her actions have repercussions for more than just herself.  By forcing her brand of pseudo-pornography onto the mainstream airwaves, she’s only exposing even more men (and even worse, young boys) to graphic sexual images with which their partners will be helpless to compete.  Other young women will suffer just as Cyrus did – and the fantasies by which their partners will be haunted will have been planted by Cyrus herself.   

If Miley Cyrus really believes the biggest issue men have is that they watch too much porn, the solution is not to offer them more of the same.  Instead, she should use her platform and worldwide influence to encourage them and their partners to stay away from it.